A home health care aide was arrested on charges she exploited her elderly patient, including getting him to sign over his $1.1 million home in Plantation.
Lillian Emeline Morris allegedly took advantage of a man in his 80s in her care, who was diagnosed with cognitive disorders and suffers from depression. Morris, 78, used her “position of trust and undue influence” to take over his finances, according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office investigator’s July report.
“She used his savings to buy things for her own benefit and travel abroad, causing him to lose almost his entire net worth,” the investigator wrote. “She also convinced [her patient] to sign a quit claim deed, giving her ownership of his residential property.”
The Broward County State Attorney’s Office charged Morris with two felony counts of exploitation of elderly person/disabled adult for $50,000 or more. She was extradited from DeKalb County, Georgia, and is held at Paul Rein Detention Facility in Broward County.
Morris couldn’t be reached for comment. A defense attorney for Morris isn’t listed in public records.
After Morris was assigned as a home health care aide to the elderly man in the summer of 2022, she “gained his trust” and the man “was isolated from his family and completely dependent on her for his physical, emotional and financial well-being,” the Broward sheriff’s investigator wrote in his report.
In May of last year, a quit claim deed was executed transferring the man’s 3,400-square-foot, four-bedroom home in the Westport housing subdivision in Plantation for a nominal $10 to Morris, according to records. The house, completed in 1995, last traded for $465,000 in 2010, and is now valued at over $1.1 million, according to property records and the investigator’s report.
Morris also diverted nearly $238,000 of her patient’s savings, including for trips to Africa, Europe and Mexico, and put $80,000 from his bank account into certificates of deposit in her own name, a joint news release from the Broward sheriff’s office and property appraiser says.
At one point, the man’s family contacted the home health care agency that employed Morris, raising concerns that she was staying overnight at his home and was there during times she wasn’t scheduled to work, according to the release. After the agency and Morris parted ways, she moved into her patient’s home and eventually also rented out one of his bedrooms to a tenant, collecting the rent proceeds, according to the release and the investigator’s report.
The alleged scheme started to unravel when a neighbor who is an attorney sued Morris under the Florida Adult Protective Services Act in November. The neighbor also filed a lis pendens to revoke the quit claim deed and eject Morris and her tenant from the Plantation home, records show.
The Broward County Property Appraiser, which started investigating following a complaint made to the Florida Department of Children and Families, also filed a notice of insufficiency of the quit claim deed in February, citing issues with the notarization.
Records show that in April, Morris was fighting to keep full ownership of the home, filing a notice of interest in the property and arguing it should serve as a lien on the house.
In South Florida, charges against caregivers attempting to defraud their elderly and disabled patients of their properties pop up sporadically.
In 2023, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office charged a caregiver with a scheme to defraud an elderly woman of her two multifamily investment properties in Miami’s Allapattah and Silver Bluff neighborhoods. The caregiver used doctored quit claim deeds, and then took out an $80,000 mortgage on the Allapattah building, diverting nearly $76,000 of the funds to herself, according to an affidavit in support of the state attorney’s warrant.
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